Find Me in Havana

by Serena Burdick

  I scoot to the other side of the couch. “That’s a stupid question. How can a cat get my tongue?”

  He knocks the glass against my bare knee, cold and wet. “It’s a saying from the English navy ships. They had whips called the cat-o’-nine-tails. Used to whip the sailors to keep them in line. Hurt so much the poor boys couldn’t speak. Cat got your tongue, they’d say.”

  “Fine, whatever,” I grumble. Alfonso has an answer for everything.

  Just then you appear, twirling in front of us and landing with one hand on your hip, the other bent at the wrist above your head, your profile angled in a dramatic pose. “What do you think?” you say, holding perfectly still.

  Green silk dips over your chest, hugs you to your knees and flares out at the bottom like petals opening at your feet. Your dark brows are penciled high into your forehead and your lips are a lustrous red. You look stunning. “Oh no!” you cry, tipping dramatically to one side, pretending your hand is stuck to your hip. “Who put the glue in my nail polish?” You dance around the room, yanking yourself along with a tortured expression. It is hard to stay mad when you make a joke out of everything. I smile.

  “Help me! Peel it off.” You bump my knees with yours. “Just rip it quick like a bandage. I won’t scream, I promise.”

  I reach for your hand, pretending to pull as you release it from your hip and go tumbling onto the couch with a screech. “That was a close call.” You laugh, wrapping me in your arms and kissing my cheek before standing to shake the wrinkles from your dress.

  Alfonso smiles up at you. “You are a rare one.”

  You beam back at him, looking as if he holds something precious you’d do anything to get your hands on. I want you to look at me that way.

  “Ready, darling?” You reach for Alfonso, and he stands, wrapping an arm around your cinched waist and kissing you in a way that disgusts me. I slouch down into the couch and cross my arms tightly over my chest.

  You push him away laughing. “You’re smudging my lipstick.”

  Alfonso drops his empty drink on the coffee table, missing the coaster, and jingles his keys in the air with an eye roll in my direction. “I’ll be in the car.” He walks out leaving the front door open.

  You give me a hurried look. “Promise you won’t sit here sulking, please? It’s still light out. Why not pop next door and see what Sandy is up to? Maybe her mom will let her come over and watch Maverick with you?” You lean into the mirror hanging by the door and nestle a black hat onto your head, little points capping your forehead like an acorn. “You know how your abuela likes to go to bed early, so don’t wake her if you stay up. There’s food in the kitchen. I ordered you steak and pecan pie from The Apple Pan, your favorite. Love you.”

  You step out, hooking your purse over one arm. I jump up and trail after you down the path. Alfonso is already behind the steering wheel of his butter-colored Cadillac. If only it would melt in the sun. He leans an elbow out the window. “Hurry up, doll. I don’t want to insult the legendary John Wayne before I meet the fella.”

  “I’m coming.” You round the car and pull open the passenger door.

  Switching tactics from earlier, I plead, “Can’t I go with you? Uncle Duke wouldn’t mind. Please, he adores me.”

  You smile at me over the top of the car, your fat, pin curls lacquered around your face. “He does adore you, but it’s too late for you to be out, and besides you’d be bored silly. There won’t be any other children there.”

  “I’m twelve. That’s hardly a child.”

  “Well, it’s hardly a woman yet, either.” You pat the roof with your white-gloved hand. “Don’t worry, you’ll have all my womanly problems soon enough. Now, go on next door and see if Sandy wants to play.”

  You’re always trying to get me to play with Sandy, telling me I need friends my own age, hoping I’ll need you less.

  Blowing a kiss, you climb in beside Alfonso, and I watch your handsome portraits recede out of the driveway.

  I follow the car into the street, standing on the scorching pavement as the silver tailpipe glints and disappears around the corner. I could run away, I think, picturing a tiny figure of myself disappearing into the glimmering haze up ahead.

  Just then Sandy Plummer bursts from her front door, jump roping over to me with wide, nimble leaps. “Want to race?” she pants, her Mary Janes clicking on the pavement, her face already a vivid red.

  “My jump rope broke,” I lie.

  Sandy can jump rope faster than any girl in the neighborhood, attends public school, has a perfect, slender nose and a mom who wears aprons and makes heart-shaped Jell-O. She is enviably normal, which is why I can’t stand her. That, and she’s sneaky, a girl who wins adults over with her smile and sticks her tongue out at their backs.

  “You just don’t want me to beat you,” she sneers.

  “Maybe I just don’t want to die of heatstroke.”

  “At least I don’t stand in the street staring out like an idiot,” she calls, jump roping past me, her shoes click-clacking away as she makes her way down the street, heading to the park where other girls will be clustered around the drinking fountain or sailing high on swings, their socks falling around their ankles, shiny calves catching the sunlight.

  I have no interest in them. I’d rather be by myself.

  It is uncomfortably hot, but I don’t want to go inside yet. I stand for a long time watching the heat waver off the pavement like shimmery, blue liquid wishing something dreadful and exciting would happen. If only there were a spell to turn my grandmother into a soft-eyed old lady who didn’t care about boarding schools. If only dry grass could swoop off the lawns and turn my stepfather into the Scarecrow like from The Wizard of Oz, turn him stupid and lifeless. Something dreadful is necessary, I think, so you and I can be together.

  Only, once the dreadful, unknown thing takes shape, it is out of the scope of my twelve-year-old imagination.

  Chapter Four

  * * *

  Rio Bravo

  Daughter,

  I admit that I did not think about you that night at Duke’s party. Or if I did, it was only to wonder if Sandy had come over, or if you’d eaten all of your dinner and not upset your abuela. I was instead absorbed in the rumors that Republic Pictures was shutting down and I’d be losing my contract.

  As the iron gates of Duke’s estate slide shut behind our car, suppressed memories rise up. Grant and I were here just three days before he died. He was in an unpleasant mood and hadn’t wanted to go out that night. His drinking had gotten worse, and war memories haunted him. We spoke of divorce and fought over the most insignificant things, things that became huge and meaningful to me after his death, like fighting over going out when we could easily have stayed home. Why did I insist? Maybe all Grant needed was for me to pay more attention to him, to have listened.

  I look over at Alfonso as he parks the car behind a black Buick. I am someone who moves forward, onward and upward, keeps at it. Alfonso was my keeping at it. We met in the bar at Radio City Music Hall. He and his brother were jugglers. They could juggle sticks of fire and knives while riding unicycles in circles around the stage. We’d seen each other perform, and our attraction was instant.

  Alfonso turns off the engine and leans over, kissing my shoulder, and I want to slither down into the seat under the sweet smell of his skin. Instead I kiss the top of his head and wriggle away before he lays a hand on my breast.

  “Not here,” I scold and haul open the heavy car door.

  Duke’s walled-in property is lush and lively, the hillside watered green, the burned earth a crusty outline behind the sweeping ranch house. Music and chatter drift from the patio, car doors slam, and people shout in greeting.

  I loop my arm through Alfonso’s, focusing on the distinct scent of his vetiver cologne and the muscular feel of his arm as we make our way down the flagstone steps to the poo
l house. If I hold him tight, stay enchanted, I can ward off the memories.

  Pilar Wayne greets us at the door, drawing me away from Alfonso before I can protest, all smiles as she places a martini in my hand and drops me on Duke’s arm. “I expect you two to get right down to it,” she says with a wink before gliding back to her post, her dress a red flame behind her.

  Duke smiles down at me, the skin around his eyes crinkling. “Glad to see you, sweetheart.”

  The sound of his gravelly voice, his woody scent and the smell of tequila swimming in his glass flood me with memories spent drunk under the sunshine beside the pool, Grant’s hands on my bare thighs, his mouth over mine. The nights we didn’t make it home, Pilar and Duke retiring to the ranch house, the pool house all ours. The things Grant and I did on this marble floor, I think, as shame and pleasure pulse through me.

  Taking a huge sip of my martini, I fold my grief into a tight square and shove it into the pit of my stomach, glancing around the large, open space for cheerful distraction. There’s a bar at one end, a black lava-rock wall at the other. The white leather couches, rattan chairs and marble floor do their best to absorb the heat beating at the windows. In a few hours, the sun will set and the place will cool to a soft blue. I miss the cooling hour. At home, I am always hot.

  Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, I spot Maureen O’Hara on the patio wrapped in pink chiffon, cheeks rouged, hair aflame, pool water shimmering behind her. The other preened men and women look dull in her presence, and I am glad to be inside.

  “That new fella of yours treating you right?” Duke nods at Alfonso, who has settled onto the sofa next to a blonde in a short, boxy dress.

  “He treats me like a queen.” I smile, all girlish charm as I tilt my head back to catch Duke’s eye.

  “As he should.” Duke plants a kiss on my forehead, endearing and fatherlike. I don’t mind. I will never be a Maureen O’Hara. Carmen Miranda is the biggest Latina star Hollywood has, and she’s still known as the lady in the tutti-frutti hat. If Hollywood had its way, all its women would be white and blonde, the more ambiguously blonde the better.

  I learned this early on, sitting on a bale of straw on the set of Cuban Fireball. My director must have assumed I’d gone to lunch with the others or else he didn’t care if I overheard. He leaned against the porch railing of our make-believe saloon and boasted to a cameraman about casting Grace Kelly in High Noon. “I’m after the drawing-room type. The real lady who becomes a whore once she’s in the bedroom. Poor Marilyn Monroe has bedroom written all over her face, and Grace Kelly isn’t very subtle, either.”

  What’s the difference? I thought. One way or another, all men want is to sleep with us.

  Which makes me appreciate the fatherliness of Uncle Duke. I’ll take a man who pats the top of my head instead of my bottom any day.

  “Come, I want to introduce you to someone,” Duke says now, and I follow him onto the patio where he waves over a woman dressed in white with copper hair falling in shoulder-length waves around her dewy complexion.

  “Estelita Rodriguez, meet Angie Dickinson, soon to be the brightest star in Hollywood.”

  “That’s flattering but ridiculous.” Angie’s voice is thick and husky, her attitude bold and deeply sexy. She yanks up her glove, smoothing it over her elbow, and I have no doubt Duke is right. She has an open-faced purity and seductive brown eyes that could easily command a room.

  “And you, my little lady—” Duke hugs me to his side, my martini splashing over the delicate rim of the glass “—will be working alongside us both. How do you like the sound of that?”

  “I like it very much.” I beam and press my arm into my side so the tops of my breasts rise ever so slightly. This is why I have come. A Warner Brothers’ movie, a Western, with just the right dark heroine for me to play.

  “What’s this movie called that I’ve heard so much about, and how are you going to get me in it?” I slide out from under Duke’s arm and pluck the onion from my martini. I hate onions—and martinis, for that matter. I prefer gin and tonic, but nobody asked.

  “Rio Bravo,” Angie answers. “And if Duke here wants you, you’re in.”

  She gives me a conspiratorial wink before sauntering away as Duke leads me to the opposite side of the pool where a bar is set up under an awning. The bartender, a dreamboat with crystal-blue eyes, fills a glass with ice, pours tequila over it and hands it to Duke before he’s even asked. Duke tips the drink in a salute of thanks, while I drain the rest of my martini, drop the onion into the empty glass and set it on the bar. “She’s right, you know.” He cocks a finger at Angie who waves from across the pool. “I told Warner Brothers you were the perfect Consuela. We’ve got Ricky Nelson and Dean Martin. It’s going to be a bang-up picture.”

  The alcohol spreads through me, and I feel elated. I’ve never done a picture this big. Onward and upward.

  From behind, Pilar wraps her arms around my waist. “Mi belleza, we have missed you.”

  I adore Pilar, a dark beauty like myself, Peruvian, although she jokes about how everyone assumes she’s Mexican. “With our accent and dark hair, it doesn’t matter where we come from...Cuba, Spain, Peru...it’s all just México to them.”

  “I gave up correcting people that I’m Cuban long ago,” I told her once, as we commiserated the ache of betraying our heritage with a shrug and a laugh.

  Now, I kiss Pilar and say, “I’ve missed you, too.”

  Releasing me, she waves to the bartender. “Two mojitos,” she orders, and I love her even more as she hands me the clear, icy drink, mint leaves floating at the top.

  The smell of rum brings me back to the Gran Teatro de La Habana where I sang every weekend during my last year in Cuba. I’d be singing there now if it weren’t for Monte Proser, the Copacabana nightclub owner who saw me perform and brought me to New York City. I miss New York—not the weather or the drab buildings but the grit of the people, the realness. Here in LA, success is cladding yourself in false sincerity, making sure you’re liked, above all else.

  But I am good at that. I glance around at the sunlit guests, peachy light spilling over the hillside, and wonder where I’d be if Mamá hadn’t convinced me to sign that ten-picture deal with Republic Pictures. The commitment had scared me. What if I was no good on-screen? I was only familiar with a live audience at the time.

  “Estelita.” Mamá had swatted at the contract Herbert Yates placed in my hands. “This is what every girl dreams! Don’t be so arrogant to think you’ll go on singing at the Copa forever. They’ll tire of your act, replace you, and by then it’ll be too late for a debut in Hollywood. You will be old. No one will want you.”

  She was right, I remind myself. Even now, at thirty, I am already what they call Hollywood old.

  I watch Pilar move to her husband’s side, her small frame dwarfed under his arm. She reminds me of Mamá, straightforward and uncompromising, determined to have things play out exactly as she’s orchestrated. She nods at the pool house. “You didn’t tell me your new husband was such a catch. Now I see why you’ve kept him away. The ladies can’t get enough.”

  Past the mingling of bodies, I see Alfonso through the window seated on the couch. The blonde who sat with him earlier has inched her way closer, and a woman with bobbed brown hair has joined on the other side. The blonde throws her head back in laughter, and I look away, wondering if he is trying to make me jealous. It’s an easy thing to do.

  “He’s harmless,” I say, hopping up on a bar stool and giving Duke a provocative, pouty expression. “More importantly, how are you going to get me out of my contract with Republic Pictures?”

  Pilar slaps him lightly on the belly. “Yes, dearest, how are you going to do that?”

  Duke offers his slow, slanted smile. “They’ve already agreed to loan you out.”

  Like a prop, I think, jumping up to kiss him on the cheek. “You’re too go
od to me. What would I do without you two?” Warner Brothers can put a basket of fruit on my head and call me Brazilian or Mexican or whatever they want if they make me a star like Carmen Miranda.

  “We’d all survive without Duke, but luckily we don’t have to,” Pilar says, Duke shaking his head lovingly at her. “Now, go lure your husband away from those devilish women, and tell him the good news.”

  When I enter the pool house, Alfonso doesn’t move to get up. Instead, he folds his arms across his chest and sinks deeper into the couch with a sulky expression. The two women look at me as if I’ve interrupted some secretive tête-à-tête, and I flush with embarrassment. I’m always upsetting Alfonso in ways I don’t understand. He’s the one flirting, not me. In that moment, I have no patience for it. I whirl around, linking arms around Kitty Taylor, the wife of a photographer I met the first year I moved here. She is not an actress, which is a relief, and she hugs me and begins a stream of chatter about her three children.

  It is dark by the time Alfonso finds me sitting on a pool chair with a shrimp cocktail in my hand. I have kept a sideways glance at him all night. We’ve both had too much to drink.

  He drops into the chair beside me, his hair slicked back from running his hands through it, a gesture indicative of nerves. Even after two years of marriage, the sight of him sends the same burning sensation through me as when we first met.

  I am thinking about coaxing him into one of the bedrooms in the pool house when he ruins it by saying, “So, you’re too embarrassed to introduce me?”

  “What?” I drop the tail of my shrimp back into the cocktail cup.

  “You’re embarrassed by me.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Why would you say that?”

  “You dropped me the moment we arrived, gliding away on Duke’s arm to hobnob with all your movie-star friends without even introducing me.” He says Duke’s name with disgust, and it angers me. I notice the sweat along his brow and the knotty mole on his chin. Annoyingly, even his mole is sexy.